D&D 5E Is 5e "Easy Mode?"

[Ilbranteloth]

See now I think this requirement alone makes more difference to healing than changing the healing rules. There was never a point in our AD&D games that we actually roleplayed out a week in town while waiting for someone to heal up 1-2hp per day, we just hand waived it. If someone wanted to do something specific during that time we might have spent a short time on it but usually we just hit the fast forward button.

The problem though with NOT allowing a long rest is the class related abilities that need that long rest to refresh. Casters need their spell slots back yet melee generally get their abilities back on a short rest. It's really a conundrum for my group because as AD&D players we found 5E to just be over the top for healing.

Last year though we decided to switch back and play a 2E campaign. I ran them through a mix of B2 Keep on the Borderlands and T1 Village of Hommlet. I changed the Kobolds in Cave A to undead Kobolds. Between clearing Cave A and then going to the Moathouse, the players probably ran back to town about 7 times, dragging unconscious characters and licking their wounds. While we all consider ourselves firmly "old-school" players we found it was pretty tedious after a while. All the treks back to town to heal only served to eat up real life game time, disconnect the players from the actual story, and really break the "immersion". I had to continually rewrite the story because it made no sense for the everything to just get put on hold each time the players needed a timeout to heal.

I am not a fan of just being able to hold up in a dungeon to get back to full but would prefer some type of middle ground. I think a 3 tier rest might be better than 2 tier. Short rest for abilities, long rest for spells, complete rest for hit points. HD use during any of the above.

If you aren't using the base rest rules, what are you using?

While the need for some classes to recover long rest abilities is a consideration, if you're trying to simulate AD&D, the waiting until a safe place actually does make some sense. Many folks forget how long it took for a wizard to actually memorize their spells. For example, to be able to recover a 9th level spell required 12 hours of rest, and then 2 hours and 15 minutes to memorize the spell. That's for a single 9th level spell.

To have an 9th level spell, you'd be 18th level. To recover all of your spells required that 12 hours of rest plus 34 hours and 45 minutes to memorize them all.

Having said that, they could choose to recover some of their slots. In our case, there weren't that many trips back to town simply because my players try to avoid combat unless they have a clear advantage. But our game is more focused on what I think D&D was originally about - exploration. That's kind of the key word for me as we'd explore the world, the characters, and the adventure itself.

I don't have any issue with them taking a break within a dungeon to rest. We've never had issues with the 5 mwd because my players always treated their characters as real people in a real world. They have a sort of routine - breakfast, adventure, lunch, adventure, make camp and dinner. I was originally quite concerned with the 5e rest system, because I was running a game for a different group and one of the players wanted to stop for a short rest after every encounter. I realized my issue wasn't so much with the recovering abilities as it was with the idea that they would stop and do nothing for an hour after every combat. So shortening a short rest to 5-15 minutes and assuming they would always recover short rest abilities (plus eventually putting a limit on the number of times they could recover those abilities) did the trick for us.

Also note that it's my players that are constantly asking for me to add more restrictions or consequences to their actions, even those that never played earlier editions.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

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My position is not that you can not make something difficult, it's that 5e lacks the sort of fine grained precisely targetable tools present in 5e are no longer available & that what remains is crude overly blunt hacks. I covered that earlier & even gave you examples of the sort of tools I'm referencing , to which you dismissed as being too long for more than a quick skim & clutched at "but resistance". Instead of claiming the tools exist, look at the specific problems people raise & do more than imply they are a poor gm.

Not by 5e's rules.
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Yeah, this is one of those 5e examples where they have basically decided that the PCs should always be able to complete a long rest. It feels very much like the "skip to the action" mantra of 4e. Watches, camp, random encounters...boring. So no need to have them.

I don't really have a problem with that. It's more that it's not only the default, but that there isn't an option to not have it. If I, as a DM, choose to modify or remove it, I'm an "evil DM nerfing their character and removing their player agency."

 

[Mepher]

Having said that, they could choose to recover some of their slots. In our case, there weren't that many trips back to town simply because my players try to avoid combat unless they have a clear advantage. But our game is more focused on what I think D&D was originally about - exploration. That's kind of the key word for me as we'd explore the world, the characters, and the adventure itself.

I think that is why my players loved our Waterdeep campaign so much. I ran the intro AL adventure for Waterdeep to introduce them to the setting. It was a 5 hour session that entirely took place in the Yawning Portal. There was lots of roleplay, combat, lots of skill checks...it was a fast paced 5 hours and they loved it. Next session we moved on to Dragonheist. I thought the adventure itself as written was weak so I added a LOT to it. The party ended up pissing off the Lords Alliance and ended up working for them to save their heads......then ended up making a deal with Jarlaxle to save their hides.....while completely pissing off the Xanathar guild and making enemies! They eventually ended up allied with the Black Viper, got caught breaking into the Cassalanter's manor (they were the antoganist) and ultimately ended up helping Aurinax defend the treasure horde against both the Cassalanter's and Jarlaxle, breaking their deal. When all was said and done they were unable to stop the Cassalanter's from murdering hundreds in an attempt to please Asmodeus.

They loved it because of how I incorporated all of their abilities as well as how vested they were in the story. When we moved to Undermountain after they hated it. It was like night and day. They hated the focus on combat. In hindsight there is a lot I can do with Undermountain to make it more like Waterdeep but I learned what they liked.

That whole game was really about exploration and story. Maybe I should learn that it should be my focus going forward at least with this group.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yeah, this is one of those 5e examples where they have basically decided that the PCs should always be able to complete a long rest. It feels very much like the "skip to the action" mantra of 4e. Watches, camp, random encounters...boring. So no need to have them.

I don't really have a problem with that. It's more that it's not only the default, but that there isn't an option to not have it. If I, as a DM, choose to modify or remove it, I'm an "evil DM nerfing their character and removing their player agency."

They included options for it... they just are not fully fleshed out & don't work for that unless the GM does heavy lifting to finish them.

Spoiler: slow natural healing

If you remove spontaneous casting & go back to old style prepared casting this works perfectly since PCs can only cast as many healing spells as they have prepared, but that's a gigantic change with huge repercussions through god knows how many things that need rebalancing. It simply results in everyone capable of casting healing spells (cleric, druid, bard, paladin, some sorcerers, some warlocks, & god knows what else) burning any unused healing abilities & spell slots to top everyone off immediately before recovering all of those things.

Spoiler: Healer's Kit Dependency

This works fine if you you Remove healing spells(and replace with what?!) or don't have anyone capable of casting healing spells (like cleric druid, bard, paladin, some sorcerers, or some warlocks), but otherwise you just push the party to do the same healing ability/spell dump immediately before regaining them if healing kits are unavailable. At 5gp & 3 pounds per 10 charges these aren't exactly going to break the bank or backs of those carrying them.

Spoiler: Healing Surges

Once again this only works unless the gm removes healing spells & abilities like lay on hands (once again, replace with what?!)or there is nobody in the party capable of casting healing spells. If someone can cast healing spells then it just skips the short rest to recover hp & makes players even more kryptonian-like.

Spoiler: Gritty Realism

This is just terrible, there's nothing about turning nearly every magic item into at will cantrip level resources, screwing with short/long rest class balance, or causing problems due to spell & ability durations that is gritty or realistic. The fact that it does not even mention any of these things as something for the GM to consider is a few extra strikes against it.

Spoiler: Epic Heroism

It's telling that this is the only one that actually works to accomplish what it claims to do without the GM finishing it.

 

[Essafah]

In D&D the world is out to get you, and death awaits the unwary around every corner.

Approach it on that basis and what you call 'random F ery' suddenly doesn't look so random: it's how the world works.

I like concept of the world being a dark place and the heroes being "points of light" in a dark world. That is not a problem. The dark tone of a world can be conveyed without hosing PCs. Also, no that does not explain certain levels of random F ery. The completely random monster ecology that was present in many early games of D&D (1E and before) made no sense. For example having a room full of rust monsters in one room, right next to a room of goblins in another room, right next to a room full of wights with gelatinous cube in the hall way right in front of some randomly placed trap does not make sense unless you are maybe entering the menagarie of some mad wizard maze keeper or something. Many dungeons in early D&D were like this.

Likewise just the random bad save or die roll that just completely wiped out a character with one bad roll was a bad mechanic and I am glad save or die is gone. It was random F ery.

If the DM just dropped these on you without warning that's a problem.

But if the DM had indicated that where you were intent on going was above your pay grade and you went there anyway? Too bad. Roll up new ones.

Some early modules very much had random ultra deadly monsters and traps that were present without warning. This was not all that rare. Also even if clues are given for a group of non-veterans players it may not be so easy to tell. I can describe cockatrices for example in a way that a veteran may use player knowledge and know what they are but newer players or players even who have never encountered them before would not necessarily recognize them and know how deadly they are for a party of a certain level.

Only if one defines fun as winning every encounter, and never having to run away or be frustrated or fail a mission or lose a character.

Winning every time would get - and does get - boring in a hurry.

No one has mentioned winning every time. If you are going to make an argument don't create a strawman and address something not said address what was said. Yes. there will be times that players have to flee in frustration. There will on the rare occasion be a character death but those instances should be just that rare. For the most part the PCs are heroes above the common person in ability even if they come from common or lower backgrounds. D&D has embraced this philosophy since 3E and the change has bettered the game.

 

[Flamestrike]

You are the one that said a wizard specifically needs to spend a spell slot to cast tiny hut. The fact that a wizard or tomelock* does not need to burn a prep or spell slot to cast tiny hut every night (or sometimes even more often) is a big part of why the spell is so problematic.

Tiny Hut is only problematic if you dont put temporal constraints on your quests/ adventures.

Which you should be doing 90 percent of the time.

 

[Garthanos]

Spoiler: Healing Surges

Once again this only works unless the gm removes healing spells & abilities like lay on hands (once again, replace with what?!)or there is nobody in the party capable of casting healing spells. If someone can cast healing spells then it just skips the short rest to recover hp & makes players even more kryptonian-like.

Lay on hands from 4e would be translated to allowing the paladin to spend his own hd on an ally.

You definitely have to pay attention to both what they are trying to do and what it isn't (it isnt what 4e HS were it is kind of what a second wind was)

An Actual Translation of HS would limit healing perhaps you might say you can only benefit from a healing spell or potion if you can spend a HD to respond to it.

Or something like that. Maybe even a healing spell is spending an HD per die of healing.
They were not presenting a limit with HS in the 5e DMG variant rules but rather an enabler for bigger more cinematic fights perhaps without healers around.

 

[tetrasodium]

Lay on hands from 4e would be translated to allowing the paladin to spend his own hd on an ally.

You definitely have to pay attention to both what they are trying to do and what it isn't (it isnt what 4e HS were it is kind of what a second wind was)

An Actual Translation of HS would limit healing perhaps you might say you can only benefit from a healing spell or potion if you can spend a HD to respond to it.

Or something like that. They were not presenting a limit.

I don't disagree that the intent was probably to make PC's even more powerful, but like flanking & facing it'd telling that the only optional things that really work are the ones that crank the dial up towards or past 11.

 

[Garthanos]

I don't disagree that the intent was probably to make PC's even more powerful, but like flanking & facing it'd telling that the only optional things that really work are the ones that crank the dial up towards or past 11.

Sure more powerful in a specific way I would say for instance If you are having fewer bigger fights having some of your short rest ability pulled into the middle of the fight makes them less swingy. It still uses a resource that you then do not have for use during a short rest. (its not freebie)

 

[tetrasodium]

Sure more powerful in a specific way I would say for instance If you are having fewer bigger fights having some of your short rest ability pulled into the middle of the fight makes them less swingy. It still uses a resource that you then do not have for use during a short rest. (its not freebie)

that ignores the nova problem that rears it's head as you step away from 6-8 encounters/long rest so you don't even get a reasonably balanced result.... unless of course the gm removes all the other healing or have none in the group.